Going to UAH from India!!

[ragavpayne]

So, can you take a couple of pictures of your room and post it online? : )

It would be nice...

[ragavpayne]

Hey James_hsv, forget the pictures. I want to ask you something else. Something more important.

How fast is the internet connection in the connections inside the residence halls? (in Resnet?)

Can you use bittorrent applications (such as uTorrent, Azureus etc) in the on campus network?

Tell me more about the networks and internet at UAH please!

[Charles]

Originally Posted by ragavpayne

How fast is the internet connection in the connections inside the residence halls? (in Resnet?)

Can you use BitTorrent applications (such as uTorrent, Azureus etc) in the on campus network?

I know this isn't answering your question (Can you use utorrent or BitTorrent...vs...how fast they work....) but I seldom see torrents able to deliver data faster than my connection..that is, my provider isn't the limiting factor.

[ragavpayne]

I wasn't talking about the speed of the downloads in bittorrent applications. Some campuses just block ports to P2P applications because it usually creates bandwidth issues. I wanted to know if P2P connections can even be made at UAH.

[james_hsv]

If you're used to a cable or T1 connection, sometimes the UAH network can seem a bit slow (too many people playing World of Warcraft, haha). But coming from an area where dial-up is all I had, it's great. I downloaded a 25 megabyte podcast today on the UAH network and it took maybe 2 minutes. The campus-wide wireless network is about as fast, though it doesn't work well in the dorms. The one big drawback to the UAH network is that you have to download a program called "Clean Access Agent", which doesn't work well on computers that run Vista. Even my laptop (w/ XP) had problems with it. Hopefully it'll be fixed before the fall. But be prepared for it- make sure your OS and anti-virus software is updated before moving to the dorms.

About torrents- I've heard of people getting kicked off the network for using them, so I wouldn't recommend it. So if I really need to use Limewire or Azureus, I just go to a friend's house.

[AnotherBravesFan]

My husband retired 12/07 and moved to Huntsville to attend UAH and to fulfill a long-delayed dream of studying physics. Since he's been out of school over 30 years, he's taking basic algebra and several other prereq's before he can take his 1st hard-core physics class. So far, he really likes UAH. He's in the intro physics course designed for non-physics majors, but there are a few students in there like him who want to pursue a physics major. His prof does have a heavy Chinese accent which took a while to get used to. He is definitely the oldest person in his classes, but there are a few other older students, and everyone (faculty, staff, students) has accepted him and made him feel at home. Coming from dry and urban San Diego, we think the campus is quite serene with lots of open space, lawns, and beautiful flowering trees we never see here in So Cal. We especially like the duck "lagoon" along Sparkman near the new Shelby Center where many of the physics courses and labs are held. We think UAH is a gem!

[smitty_]

I know that this thread is a little aged now, I ran across it and wanted to give you some answers. I am a Sr physics student and have been at UAH for the last three years. While UAH certainly has its up side it not perfect by any means. First of all, everyone always tells you to take Dr. Strong, now I lover Dr. Strong, she is a great wonderful person who will take care of you when you need and a great cook to boot, but I dont really like her teaching style. I think it is a bit one dimential and high schoolish, she dosent leave room for much creativity and classes consist of her working examples for 90% of the lecture. Now some people love this, its really a matter of personal preferance.

If your really want to be challenged, take Dr. Burko, he is probably the smartest person I will ever meet. Dr. Burko assumes that you and everyone how has ever tout you is a genius and I feel safe to say that the level of his classes is comparable to that of an MIT graduate lecture class. The reason I feel safe to say this is because the only way to make the classes more information dense by time (from the outside observer) would be to have the classroom be moving at a high portion of the speed of light. To give you an idea of the intensity of his class Dr. Burko is Israeli and has told stories in the past of being in high school and taking field trips to the desert to do calculus. Now, the MSC isn't quite a desert but that doesn't detract to much. I had 4 semester in a row with him and I doubt I will ever learn so much in such a short amount of time again. In short, I endorse Dr. Burko, you should take him!

Dr. Millers is a good competent teacher/person. He is kind and easy going, has a passion for his students and such. Miller also single handedly forced the dept to go just about all Mac, so that is a plus.

Dr. Lin is also a very kind person but he's not a very good teacher and he knows it. He usually teaches strait from the book. He is also Chines and the language barrier is strong. I have had 2 classes from him and skipped 80% of them.

Dr. Bonamente is good, kind, cheerful; I particularly like his respect for concept over algebra. He understand that being rite is not as important as understanding why you're wrong, he also understands that being rigorously accurate is usually worth your time. Bonamente is also the only linux user in the dept.

Dr. Gregory, in my own meaningless opinion, is a horrible arrogant human being who should give a very wide breadth. He is supposedly very good at quantum mechanics, but from everyone that I've heard he's much better at mocking his students then teaching them.

In my time at UAH the physics dept has lost 3 exceptional professors and this year their replacements are arriving so that will be interesting I'm sure.

Get to know Dora, she is the assistant to the chair and the nicest person in Huntsville.

As for dorms, they are above average and have plenty of space. Get into southeast as soon as you can, it is cheap and the administration is much more lax there.

In the past the internet in the dorms on campus has been deplorable. When I got there it rarely worked and was caped at 36 kbs. Since then it has become more stable and is caped around 130 kbs. You are not supposed to torrent and they do watch for it, but if your resourceful it can be done. If you use windows you will have to fight with the clean access client, its very annoying and buggy, if it dosn't like you virus protection or its out of date it will lock you out, preventing you from updating it. If you use a mac, my understanding is that you can get on the network with your bothering with clean access, very nice. If you want to use linux you have to register you mac address from a windows install, they you will be able to log in from you browser. Last I heard they don't have wireless in the dorms and if you can pick it up the EULA states that you cant use it from a dorm. Like most universities, you can't use routers on their network. The lucky thing for you is that as of last year the dorm you will be living in gives to option of buy privet internet from a local vendor. Do this if you can afford it and save yourself many headaches.

I don't know where you are from in India by if you are from a place with comparable population density chances are you will find Huntsville to be quite boring, especially on the weekends, UAH is a commuter campus which makes it a ghost campus on the weekends. Hockey games are good though despite the pep band. Just make lots of friends who are also stuck there to watch movies with and whatnot. Huntsville also shuts down at 9:00 at night, the only 24 hour places are IHOP, Stake and Shake, Dennie's and Waffle House.

I dont know what your research interests are but most of the stuff in the dept is not very hands on. If you want to do astro I recommend Burko or Bonamente, Miller is good to but usually doesn't have any spots open. If you want to do something hands on you might want to see what is going in the Engineering dept. If you are interested in propulsion I recommend Dr. Cassibry at the PRC, he is into electric propulsion and plasma physics/MHD applications.

Hope this is helpful and I hope you get something meaningful from UAH, feel free to email me with any questions.